


every house is incompleat

by busaikko



Series: War Stories [7]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Cats, Community: mcsmooch, Infidelity, M/M, missing-presumed-dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-10
Updated: 2009-10-10
Packaged: 2017-10-07 08:23:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/busaikko/pseuds/busaikko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know what they say. A new cat is never the same as an old husband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every house is incompleat

"You got a new cat," John said, pausing in the doorway and looking towards the sofa.

Rodney shrugged. "Yes, well, when I said I wouldn't ever replace Zaz, I guess I was lying." Which was a mishmash of half-truths. Zaz had been old and thin and suffering massive organ failure when he'd been put to sleep. Everyone had said goodbye; everyone had cried -- even John, Rodney suspected. Zaz could never be _replaced_ in their memories, but sometimes a man needed a cat to come home to and to sleep with.

Rodney shifted John's duffel from one hand to another, and John made an apologetic noise and moved out of the way. John had gotten really far too good at moving quickly into an unobtrusive or relatively safe position.

"Her name's Triss," Rodney said, as he walked down the hall and tossed John's stuff on the bed. "She's high strung. You'll probably have to bribe her with food for a week or two before she decides whether or not she approves of you. But considering you're going to be sleeping in her place in bed, I'm guessing there'll be some horrible rivalry going on. Sit down," he added, waving at the chairs and the sofa, which he'd kept in the exact same position for the past three years. Just in case John had miraculously reappeared in the house in the middle of the night, Rodney didn't want him walking into any furniture.

"You don't," John said, and crutched back a step so he could lean against the wall. He looked like he was barely hanging on. He looked like he wanted to run. Rodney had been warned not to push, not to expect too much, most of all not to expect John to be the same. "I slept with the other John Sheppard," John said, face hard. "So you don't, I can. I don't," he said on a short aggravated sigh. "I can go."

"Do you think I care?" Rodney snapped, and John looked, impossibly, even more wounded. "I lost you. I thought I'd never see you again, and -- " he had to take a deep breath to force his voice down to a conversational tone -- "it broke my heart. Really. Ask anyone. But I had the kids and the people at work, I had people who gave a damn whether I got out of bed in the morning. I had this house and all our pictures and, not to sound creepy but, I kept your laundry in the dresser just because it smelled like you. You had nothing and no one. If you think I'm going to be angry because you did find comfort -- . Well. I won't do that to you." He crossed his arms. "I did not have sex with anyone. I got a cat. But that's not because I was trying to win the virtue Olympics."

John shut his eyes. "They took my wedding ring," John said. He sounded almost diffident.

Rodney figured it would take years, if ever, for John to finally be able to talk about where he had been and what happened to him. So far, John had managed to sum up his missing years with a handful of sentences. He'd gone through the rift; the stupid bastards on the other side had thrown him in jail for espionage. He'd been forced to work repairing engines, which John said wasn't all that bad, and was finally rescued by that universe's John Sheppard and his team, five or so months previous. He'd also been sleeping with himself.

John had lost more than just a ring. He'd lost his family, his world, his freedom. He had lost weight, and apparently crappy alternative-reality medical plans didn't cover prisoners or fugitives. John had been forced to rely on crutches for years now, and Rodney knew how he loathed that.

Rings, Rodney could buy them by the hundreds, John could bathe in rings, and Rodney very nearly said so, said _I'll buy you another_. It was a close thing. Except that Rodney remembered about John, that for every two words he said there were twenty that he meant but couldn't say.

"All that matters," Rodney said, shoving his hands in his pockets, "is whether you still love me or not. If you do, good, I love you, too, and just for now that can be enough. No talking things out, no drama about forgiveness. If you don't, there's the guest bedroom for tonight, or -- "

"Kiss me?" John asked, looking straight at Rodney, chin at a challenging angle.

Rodney didn't doubt that it was a test, that John was going to try and make him flinch and refuse. Betray some subconscious disgust at having not got back the same husband who'd left, through that front door, three years ago, shouting a reminder to Rodney to send Jeannie something for her birthday. John hadn't said goodbye out of superstitious habit. Rodney had been grateful for that for a long time; when he'd started craving closure, he got a cat instead.

He was across the room in three strides, fast enough for John's eyes to widen, and he framed John's face with his hands and pulled him into a kiss. He wanted to put worlds of passion into the kiss: make it hard and fast and hot and desperate and other romance-novel adjectives. He wanted the whole universe to shake with the rightness of having John back. He wanted a swell of background music. He wanted to _be_ John's goddamned wedding ring and be wrapped around him forever.

He was shaking with the effort to put all that into the kiss, and he had no idea how feelings lived in John's head, incapable of being exorcised with words.

John kissed back as good as he got. Rodney knew John was trying to tell him things as well, his hands rough as he touched, like he needed too much to be gentle. He imagined that John was mostly saying _it's you, I'm home, I'm home and I'm welcome_, and Rodney started kissing slower, trying to say (gently, romantically), _duh_.

John wasn't stable on his feet even when he was concentrating, so Rodney wasn't surprised that one of his crutches hit the floor, or that a few minutes later John was leaning a lot of his weight onto Rodney. Rodney didn't mind; weight made John real. But he didn't want John to collapse, so he dragged the kiss to a lingering kind of conclusion and then dragged John into the bedroom and told him to lie down.

"You don't have to -- " he started, and then tried to figure out how to say that they didn't have to have sex without sounding as if he didn't _want_ to have sex. John sat down on the edge of the bed, and Rodney knelt automatically to undo his shoes (weird black alternate-universe boots with heavy unbending soles). John made a noise that sounded almost like a protest. "You've had a long and really bad day," Rodney explained, tossing the boots into the closet so they wouldn't trip anyone up. "Really long and really bad. So whatever you want."

"It wasn't easy for you, either," John said. "What do _you_ want?"

Rodney got up and took off his jacket, tossing it on the chair, and took off his shoes and socks. He tried not to look like he was looking too hard as John pulled off his alien not-really-but-almost jeans, and he tried not to laugh when he saw that John was wearing baggy knee-length underwear. "I want to hold you," he said, being honest and hoping that John understood it wasn't a demand.

John looked at him and gave him a not-really-but-almost smile. "Lie down," he said, jerking his head at the bed, and Rodney did. John stretched out alongside him, settling and resettling and shifting until he had both arms around Rodney. John smelled different and he felt wiry thin, but Rodney's skin remembered that this was how John held him, and he let his eyes drift closed.

He was mostly asleep when John said, "I always," and stopped, and said, "I never," and stopped again, and then said, "I love you so much it hurts, loved you every day I was gone" all in a rush, voice raw and cracking low.

"You're home and you're safe and I never stopped hoping," Rodney said. "You know what they say. A new cat is never the same as an old husband."

John snorted. "Go to sleep," he said, so Rodney did.

**Author's Note:**

> This series overlaps itself (inevitable, when one of the stories covers 20 or so years!). However, I think the following read-order might work.
> 
> War Stories  
> How to Win a War  
> Tales from the Front 1  
> Once in a Lifetime  
> Details of the War  
> Every House Is Incompleat


End file.
